Monsters in the Modern World

The worst thing about being a werewolf in Dusty Creek isn’t the silver bullets.

It’s the cholesterol.

Seriously. I survived villagers with torches, a priest who tried to exorcise me with holy water and expired cooking sherry, and three different pitchfork incidents.

But one little lab report and suddenly my doctor is looking at me like I’m the problem. “Your LDL looks like a murder scene, Wolfgang,” she’d said.

I thought that was a compliment.

It was not.

So now I’m vegan. A vegan werewolf. The universe has jokes.

That’s how I ended up padding up the stairs of the Dusty Creek YMCA every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m., claws clicking on the chipped linoleum, headed for the BlissBurst Therapy Room on the second floor at 1600 Red Rum Drive.

Officially, it’s called Monsters in Transition: Weekly Support Group.

Unofficially, it’s where horror villains go to admit we’re more scared of the twenty-first century than anyone ever was of us.

The door was already half open. A crooked poster was taped to the outside:

BE KIND TO YOUR MIND.

Written neatly under that is (please no shedding inside the facility).

I took a breath, tucked my phone into my hoodie pocket, and ducked inside.

The room always looked like it was trying to forget the 1970s and failing. Mismatched linoleum squares made the floor look like someone had given up halfway through a board game. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like anxious bees, flickering at the ends like tired disco bulbs. Folding chairs older than I am circled the middle of the room, groaning every time they remembered they had joints.

At the head of the circle sat Rebecca “Becky Poo” Mionla, licensed therapist and professional danger optimist. She wore a cardigan that looked like it had emotional support certification and held her clipboard the way other people held religious medallions. ”Wolfgang,” she said, smiling like she’d been expecting me. “Good to see you. How’s the plant-based journey?”

“I haven’t eaten anyone all week,” I said. “I did eat half a Pothos and a decorative Ficus, though.”

From across the circle, Boo Radley, our resident ghost, glared at me.

“That Ficus was mine. I was finally starting to feel like I lived somewhere.”

“In my defense,” I said, taking my usual seat, “it looked delicious.”

“It was plastic.”

“That explains the texture.”

Becky clicked her pen. “Progress, not perfection.”

Around the circle, the rest of the group settled in.

Mimi Mummy sat two chairs down from me, her ancient linen wraps secured with color-coded binder clips. Her sphynx cat, Fuzzy, curled smugly in her lap like a tiny, hairless tyrant. Every so often, Fuzzy would bat at a loose strip of gauze with the single-minded joy of someone who woke up every day and chose violence.

Next to Mimi sat Frank Einstein, with no relation. Even though he insisted otherwise, of course.

“Second cousin, twice removed on my left arm’s side,” he’d told us once. Frank is built like a walking junkyard, stitches, bolts, scars, and the tired eyes of a man who has seen too many YouTube tutorials go wrong. He wears the same flannel every week. Nobody knows if he owns more than one or if that one just refuses to die.

On my right, Stoney the Gargoyle bounced his knee, his stone wings twitching enough to repeatedly smack the thermostat off the wall. He has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel and the impulse control of a toddler in a crystal shop.

And, faintly shimmering near the window, arms crossed, was Boo, Dusty Creek’s most disaffected ghost.

“It’s disrespectful,” Boo muttered as I sat down. “You can’t just eat someone’s houseplant. There are rules.”

“You walk through people in the grocery store,” I pointed out.

“I’m working on that”, she said nervously.

“Are you?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Emotionally,” he said.

Becky checked her list. “We’re still waiting on one more.”

“Oh, he’s here,” Mimi said, dusting a bit of ash off her wraps and pointing to the ceiling.

I looked up. A bat-like shape hung from the rafters, upside down, arms crossed, cigarette somehow still dangling from his mouth at a ninety-degree angle to all known laws of physics.

“Vlad,” Becky said, sighing. “We’ve talked about this. You must be seated during group, not just… hanging around.”

The shape dropped from the rafters and hit the floor with a practiced thud. In a whirl of motion, he straightened, shook out his leather jacket, and slid into the closest folding chair, which whimpered audibly.

“My name is Vincent,” he said, smoothing his hair back. “We’ve also talked about that.”

“Right,” Becky said gamely. “Vincent. Thank you for joining us. Again.”

He flicked ash into a paper cup labeled NO SMOKING and smiled with all the warmth of a power outage.

“Shall we begin?” Becky asked. “Tonight’s focus is coping with modern anxieties. Technology, traffic, bureaucracy, that sort of thing. Whoever feels moved to share can start.”

Everyone looked at everyone else. I tried to sink into my hoodie. No such luck. “Wolfgang,” Becky said, with that gentle voice that always meant I was doomed, “why don’t you start us off?”

I hate going first. I also hate disappointing Becky. I picked the lesser evil.

“I had my follow-up appointment yesterday,” I said. “The doctor said my numbers are down, which is good, but she also wants me to ‘integrate more plant-based protein options.’”

“That sounds promising,” Becky said.

“There are no plant-based protein options that don’t involve quinoa,” I said. “Every recipe blog is a cult. Just roast some chickpeas and make a quinoa bowl! I am not a forest sprite. I am a werewolf. I need… chew.”

“You ate my Ficus,” Boo reminded me.

“In my defense…..”

“It was plastic,” he snapped.“Again, because you apparently didn’t absorb that the first time.”

“I am adapting,” I growled, “and adaptation takes missteps.”

Becky scribbled something on her clipboard. “Thank you for sharing that, Wolfgang. It sounds like you’re working hard to reconcile your health needs with your identity as a werewolf. That’s a big shift.”

“I haven’t eaten anyone,” I said quietly.

Becky’s eyes softened. “That’s huge progress. ”

Fuzzy chose that exact moment to lunge for a loose piece of Mimi’s bandage. Mimi sneezed, a sound like a vacuum cleaner backfiring, and a strip of gauze slid off her shoulder. Fuzzy pounced triumphantly, ripped it free, and sprinted across the room with the gait of a thief who had no regrets.

“For the thousandth time,” Mimi groaned, clutching at the now-exposed section of forearm, “that’s not enrichment, that’s structural integrity!”

Stoney snorted. “Honestly, same.”

Becky cleared her throat. “Mimi, do you want to go next?”

Mimi sighed, patting around for one of her color-coded binder clips. “My therapist says I have ‘control issues.’ I say if you’ve spent three thousand years trying not to unravel, you earn the right to be particular.”

“How’s the job search going?” Becky asked.

Mimi brightened a little. “I applied at the craft store.”

Frank shifted in his chair. It squealed like a guilty conscience. “How’d that go?”

“They said I was ‘overqualified’ for textiles but asked if I’d be willing to stand in the Halloween aisle and ‘set a mood’ from August through November. That sounds like exploitation,” Boo said.

“That sounds like employment,” Mimi said. “You know what rent costs in Dusty Creek for an apartment with good eastern light and no mirrors?”

All eyes slid over to Vincent.

He held up his hands. “Don’t drag me into your financial anxieties. I have enough of my own.”

“Vincent,” Becky said smoothly, “how have things been for you this week?”

He leaned back, cigarette dangling, fangs glinting faintly under the flickering light.

“I tried,” he said slowly, “to withdraw cash. At the ATM. They put in one of those new machines with facial recognition. I stood there at two in the morning, in the icy wind, staring at a screen that kept telling me, ‘FACE NOT DETECTED, PLEASE STEP CLOSER.’ So I stepped closer… and bared my fangs. The camera glitched,” he said. “The machine rebooted. When it came back on, it locked my account and told me to visit my nearest branch during normal business hours. Now I owe thirty-five dollars in overdraft fees because my subscription coffee service renewed.”

“Subscription coffee,” I repeated.

“I like consistency, and Im up all night,” he snapped.

Becky nodded, writing quickly. “Thank you, Vincent. It sounds like you’re experiencing a lot of invalidation and systemic barriers.”

“If ‘systemic barriers’ is therapist for ‘this century is stupid,’ then yes,” he said.

We went around the circle.

Boo talked about people walking through him without consent. “I stand in line like everyone else,” he said. “I queue. I wait. And then some guy with earbuds just”, he mimed someone strolling through his torso, “no ‘excuse me,’ no ‘my bad,’ just vibes and disrespect.”

Stoney admitted he’d been reported to the HOA again. “I was just sitting on the edge of the roof,” he said. “And some neighbor goes on Nextdoor like, ‘There’s a demonic hawk statue watching my children.’ First of all, Brenda, I’m a gargoyle, not a hawk. Second, your children started it.”

Frank, when prompted, stared down at his enormous hands. “I tried the interstate again,” he rumbled. “Twelve lanes,” he said quietly. “Merging. No horse in sight. Everyone’s honking. Everyone’s angry. I saw a billboard that said, ‘Obey Your Thirst,’ and I thought, ‘My thirst says turn around.’ Next thing I know, I’m waking up at a Panda Express in Las Vegas with a receipt for three family meals and a fortune cookie that said, ‘YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT PATH.’ I kept my blinker on for five states.”

I knew that panic. The full moon is easy; it’s a script my body already knows. Twelve lanes of angry humans in steel boxes? That’s chaos.

Becky took a breath and smiled the way therapists do when they’re about to say something they learned in a seminar.

“Thank you, everyone, for sharing. I’m hearing a lot of themes of invisibility, invalidation, and fear of systems that weren’t built with you in mind.”

“Welcome to being dead,” Boo said.

“Or stitched together,” Frank added.

“Or on a plant-based diet,” I muttered.

Before Becky could reply, the overhead lights hiccupped violently. They flickered off, plunging the room into a darkness only half of us appreciated.

“Oh, forgive me a second,” Stoney said, standing. His wings knocked the emergency exit sign off the wall with a crash. Fuzzy bolted under a chair with a stolen length of gauze.

The lights sputtered and flared back on.

And there was a man in the doorway.

He was human. Tragically, unmistakably human. Middle-aged, short-sleeved dress shirt with pit stains, tie that looked like it had given up on life sometime in 2009, and a laminate ID badge clipped to his pocket. He held a clipboard.

“Uh,” he said, looking around. “Is this… the Monsters in Transition group?”

We all stared at him.

Vincent’s eyes narrowed. Boo went slightly more transparent. Fuzzy hissed from under a chair.

Becky smiled. “Yes. You must be…?”

“Todd,” he said, stepping inside. “Todd Harper. I’m with the Municipal Budget Office. Non-Human Entities Division.”

“There’s a division?” Stoney asked.

“Wow,” Boo said. “I didn’t even get a W-2.”

Todd shuffled his papers. “Right. So, uh, per Town Ordinance 14-B, all special-interest community groups receiving municipal grant funding have to undergo an annual review for… uh…” He frowned at his clipboard. “‘Relevance, impact, and fiscal justification.’”

“Oh, this should be good,” Vincent muttered.

Becky’s smile got tighter. “Todd, we weren’t expecting you tonight.”

“That’s kind of the point of a spot check,” Todd said. He looked around again and his face went a little pale as his brain tried to reconcile the gargoyle, the ghost, the mummy, the vampire, the stitched giant, and the large werewolf in a hoodie. “I just need to observe the group and fill out this rubric.” He held up the clipboard like a shield.

“Are we… in danger of losing funding?” Mimi asked.

Todd coughed. “Well, the town council is trying to re-prioritize. There’s been talk of directing more resources toward… skate parks.”

“A skate park,” Boo repeated. “For the living.”

“I mean, I don’t think the dead use them much,” Todd said weakly.

Boo folded his arms. “That’s ghost discrimination.”

“Look,” Todd said, shifting from foot to foot, “I’m just here to see if this group has a measurable benefit to the community.”

The energy in the room tightened. Vincent bared just a hint of fang.

“Good news. We love evaluations.” Becky jumped in. “Todd, why don’t you have a seat? We’re in the middle of sharing.”

Todd sat nervously between Boo and Stoney, scooting away from both.

Becky turned to me. “Wolfgang, would you be willing to talk a little about how this group helps you cope?”

I cleared my throat. “Before I came here, I thought most of my problems came from villagers with torches. They were… simple. The modern world is different. Traffic. Algorithms. Cholesterol panels. HOA rules about ‘acceptable statuary.’” I nodded at Stoney. “Banking systems that can’t see you.” I nodded at Vincent. “People walking through you like you’re not even there.”

Boo raised a translucent hand.

“Out there, I’m a problem to be solved. In here… I’m just Wolfgang, trying not to eat the neighbors and figure out what to put in a salad. I’m less dangerous when I come here, to myself and everyone else.”

Mimi smiled faintly. Frank nodded once.

Mimi lifted her hand. “I keep my wrapping together better when I come here. Out there, people want me for aesthetics. Halloween décor. Instagram backdrops. In here, they notice when I’m unraveling.”

“What she said,” Boo added. “Also, I’m less likely to haunt the town council if I have a place to vent.”

“I’ve cut my panic blackouts by thirty percent,” Frank rumbled. “If that’s not ‘measurable impact,’ I don’t know what is.”

Stoney straightened. “I haven’t dive-bombed anyone’s chimney in months.”

Vincent flicked ash into his cup. “I’ve only hypnotized two baristas this year.

”Becky shot him a look.

“What?” he said. “I was working on ‘impulse control in low-sugar states.’”

Todd stared at us, pen hovering. “I… see.”

“Do you?” Boo asked. “Really? Because your clipboard looks unconvinced.”

Todd glanced down at the rubric. “I’m supposed to score categories like ‘community safety,’ ‘social integration,’ and ‘cost-benefit ratio’ on a scale from one to five.”

I leaned forward. The room got very quiet.

“Category one: community safety. Do you feel safer knowing the werewolf, the vampire, the mummy, the ghost, the gargoyle, and the reanimated giant have therapy?”

Todd swallowed. “That… would be a five.”

“Social integration,” Mimi said. “We are literally integrating.”

“Cost-benefit ratio,” Boo said. “Cost: a room, some fluorescent lighting, and Becky’s hourly rate. Benefit: fewer mysterious howls, reduced spectral interference, lower odds of someone waking up in a Panda Express three states away. And less blood, on average.”

Todd’s pen moved faster now. His heartbeat slowed from panicked hummingbird to anxious pigeon.

“I… didn’t realize,” he said. “I just see line items and grant proposals. I didn’t think about what that meant.”

“That’s the problem with paperwork,” Frank said gently. “It forgets there are people and monsters on the other side.”

Becky leaned forward. “Todd, I hope you’ll include what you’ve heard tonight.”

Todd nodded slowly. “I will. And… for what it’s worth, the skate park proposal is a mess. I don’t think it’s going to pass.”

Boo brightened. “Ooh. Not because of us, right? Just normal human incompetence?”

“Mostly,” Todd said.

He stood, tucking the clipboard under his arm. “Thank you all. I’ll recommend continuing the program.” He glanced at me, then at Vincent, and added, “Strongly.”

As he reached the door, he paused. “Just out of curiosity… is there a group like this for humans?”

Becky smiled. “There are lots of groups for humans.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking tired. “None of them seems to help.”

“You can sit in next week,” Becky said. “If you want.”

“I’ll… think about it,” he said.

When the door clicked shut, Vincent leaned back and exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “If he comes back, I’m making him bring donuts.”

“Vegan,” I said automatically.

“Absolutely not,” Vincent replied.

Becky glanced at the clock. “Any final thoughts before we close?”

Fuzzy reappeared, dragging a long strip of linen like a trophy. Mimi sighed and reached for another binder clip.

I looked around at the circle the mummy piecing herself together, the ghost with his wounded pride, the gargoyle playing with a broken thermostat, the vampire who couldn’t get a checking account, the stitched-together giant afraid of merging, the therapist with her clipboard and stubborn hope.

“The worst part of being a monster in the modern world isn’t the systems, or the traffic, or the apps that can’t see you, or the quinoa,” I said.

“It’s definitely the quinoa,” Stoney muttered.

“It’s not just the quinoa,” I corrected. “It’s… doing all of that alone.”

I took a breath. “The best part is this room. For one hour, the world is still terrifying… but at least we’re terrified together.”

Becky smiled. Vincent smirked. Frank nodded. Mimi dabbed at her eye with the corner of a spare wrap. Boo pretended to adjust the light fixture instead of his feelings.

Outside, a siren wailed faintly. Somewhere in town, a tumbleweed made a poor life choice. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like tired, loyal bees.

Monsters, it turned out, didn’t fear pitchforks nearly as much as they feared paperwork, passwords, and twelve-lane interstates.

But on Tuesday nights at 1600 Red Rum Drive, even the twenty-first century felt like something we just might survive.

One quinoa bowl at a time.